Campaigning starts for DRC poll

KINSHASA – Giant billboards and megaphone announcements greeted potential voters in the Democratic Republic of Congo on Saturday as campaigning got off to a peaceful but tense start for the second round in its historic election.

On main roads in the capital Kinshasa, vast billboards appeared overnight depicting the country’s (DRC) Vice-President Jean-Pierre Bemba, who faces off against the incumbent President Joseph Kabila on October 29. Pictured wearing a dark suit and serious expression, Bemba had changed his image from that conveyed by his floral print shirts ahead of July’s first-round poll, when he won 20 per cent of the vote to Kabila’s 44.8 per cent.”All united for the nation,” read the slogan for the challenger Bemba, a former rebel army leader and rich businessman.Meanwhile in Lubumbashi, the second city of the vast central African country and a stronghold of the current president, vehicles equipped with loud hailers drove through the town centre calling out support for Kabila.The polls will be the last phase of a process designed to yield DRC’s first freely elected head of state in nearly half a century.Nampa-AFPPictured wearing a dark suit and serious expression, Bemba had changed his image from that conveyed by his floral print shirts ahead of July’s first-round poll, when he won 20 per cent of the vote to Kabila’s 44.8 per cent.”All united for the nation,” read the slogan for the challenger Bemba, a former rebel army leader and rich businessman.Meanwhile in Lubumbashi, the second city of the vast central African country and a stronghold of the current president, vehicles equipped with loud hailers drove through the town centre calling out support for Kabila.The polls will be the last phase of a process designed to yield DRC’s first freely elected head of state in nearly half a century.Nampa-AFP